Some Web3 Discourse
This is part 6 of my series, The Black Purposes of Web3, where I post my undergraduate thesis in sections. Read the series intro.
This post corresponds to a section ("Media Discourse") of the fourth chapter ("Web3: The Values, the Tech, and the Media"), and contains more academic analysis and citations. It's adapted closely from my original writing.
Web3 and related technologies have been experiencing a period of "hype" lately as the trendy new movement in technology, especially when it comes to discussions of keywords like "crypto" and "Bitcoin" in blogs and media articles. It has become a popular topic in part due to its principle of democratization and "power to the people ethos," but also because of how controversial it has become. A simple Google search about Web3 will demonstrate that among people within certain fields and across the Internet, from software engineers to social scientists to venture capitalists, there does not seem to be a consensus on whether Web3 is just a trend of today or the truth of the future. Some are completely invested in the idea, and some are not convinced, while still many others fall somewhere in between. This section will provide an overview of multiple perspectives, not to advocate for any as right or wrong, but simply as data to illustrate the landscape of the discourse.
The Maximalists
In the crypto world, a maximalist or a "maxi," specifically a "Bitcoin maxi," is slang that refers to someone who is invested in Bitcoin and believes it to be the best and only real cryptocurrency, and are generally extreme and close-minded on the subject.[1] This interpretation fits the general definition of a maximalist as well – someone who takes an unwavering stance on a topic and does not take criticism. Though the term "maximalist" or "maxi" could be seen as a bit extreme for some supporters of Web3, I will call this group the Web3 Maximalists, since it covers the general rhetoric of the major proponents of this new technology.
A well known "Web3 evangelist," Chris Dixon is a partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz ("a16z"), and he is one of the largest investors in and proponents of Web3. As evidenced by his significant investments in the technology and extensive writing about the topic, he is a firm believer in the power of Web3 to change the web as we know it for the better. From Dixon's perspective, Web3 "fixes the core problem of centralized networks, where the value is accumulated by one company, and the company ends up fighting its own users and partners." Rather than having to "choose between the limited functionality of Web 1 or the corporate, centralized model of Web 2," with Web3, users can get the best of both eras.
Additionally, in response to critics of Web3 who say that Web3 "isn't actually decentralized, because there are centralized services in the mix, such as NFT marketplaces like OpenSea", he explains the misunderstanding of what Web3 proponents mean when they talk about decentralization.
Dixon clarifies this misunderstanding by saying that Web3 will have centralized services, but their network effects will accrue as public goods, like DNS in Web 1.0, rather than to private companies like they do in Web 2.0. He further illustrates this concept by describing Web3's data portability, which allows users to "easily switch services if those [centralized] services start charging too much" while maintaining ownership of their data and any value gained from the service.
In a more general sense, but presumably about Web3, Dixon provides examples of ways new technologies can be misunderstood. He cites how early on, "breakthrough technologies like the telephone, personal computers, and social media" were dismissed as being just a toy, and people "failed to imagine how quickly [flaws] would be improved." More specifically, it was common for people to claim that blogs and social media like Twitter were just passing fads, but now "billions of people rely on social media as their primary news source." These also seem to be rebuttals against critics of Web3 considering his primary deep investment in it, literally and figuratively, though he does not specifically mention Web3 or crypto in that particular article. Taken together, Dixon's articles and statements give a prominent voice to the perspective of venture capitalists invested in Web3, so his stake in having people agree with him is apparent.
Another group of Web3 proponents includes the founder of the Ethereum blockchain, as well as members of the Ethereum community that help support it and its technologies. The term "Web3" itself was coined in 2014 by Gavin Wood, one of the founders of Ethereum. For Wood, Web3 means "less trust, more truth" – less of "the belief that something will happen, that the world will work in a certain way, without any real evidence or rational arguments as to why it will do that," and more of reason to "believe that our expectations will be met." He believes that applications built on blockchain technologies are the way to do this due to the fact that it is "open, transparent, decentralized, peer-to-peer" and uses "both cryptography and certain game theory economics to deliver its service."
Another advocate is John Stark and others at the Ethereum Foundation, which is a "non-profit that supports the Ethereum ecosystem" as a part of a "larger community of organizations and individuals that fund protocol development, grow the ecosystem, and advocate for Ethereum."[2] Stark asserts that Web3 is "a group of technologies that restructure control over the Internet," because Web3 is about power and control over the Internet that we rely heavily on, rather than being about speed or convenience. Furthermore, he clarifies that Web3 is not just about cryptocurrencies and blockchains, but it "encompasses any technology that helps reform the centralized Internet and lets users take back control over their digital lives." Stark highlights a part of the vision of Web3, which is that users will be able to capture value from their data for the same reason that large companies collect it. He says that "if you want to sell data about your personal browsing habits, you will be able to do so directly — but you get paid, not Facebook."
Interestingly, even as a dedicated supporter of Web3, Stark points out many of the questions that still remain when people discuss and criticize the technology. "Do enough users actually care about privacy, controlling their own identity, or access to open financial services?" "Can the base-layer blockchains used by web 3 apps ever scale to serve millions or billions of users?" "Will the cryptographic components of decentralized applications be too challenging for most users?" He does not attempt to answer these questions with more buzzwords and acknowledges these uncertainties, and even criticizes some of his peers by saying that "cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiasts are rightly criticized for focusing myopically on technology, rather than the problems that technology is supposed to solve." Nonetheless, he maintains belief in the ethos of Web3 and its values, and hopes that it brings change to the web as we know it, even if the changes look different than what is being proposed now.
The Critics
On the other side of the debate, various Web3 Critics have expressed their skepticism in direct response to the maximalist movement. One notable critic is Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the first iteration of the web. Even though he agrees with Web3 maximalists that the current Web 2.0 goes against the original decentralized ideas of Web 1.0, he says that "Web3 is not the web at all."[3] According to him, blockchains are not the solution for the centralized version of the web because they are "too slow, too expensive, and too public." Instead he proposes his own solution, Solid, to give users ownership and control over their personal data online, which will be discussed later in this series.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and well-known tech entrepreneur, also criticized Web3 and its hype by tweeting his beliefs that venture capitalists will be the ones that own Web3 rather than the individuals.
Cryptocurrency researcher, writer, and former software engineer Molly White is an outspoken critic of Web3 and holds the belief that its associated technologies "are so harmful that [she] cannot ethically continue to ignore them, and must instead do [her] best to educate and advocate against their wider adoption."[4] After trying to learn more about Web3 and its underlying technologies, she noticed the sea of buzzwords coming from venture capitalists and tech journalists pushing a tech utopia built on the blockchain. In her search beyond the hype for "projects that actually needed a blockchain and were credibly changing the paradigm in the direction of these stated web3 ideals," White found many projects that were actually doing the opposite, leading to her conclusion that Web3 "is going just great."
Her sarcastically titled project Web3 is Going Just Great is an ongoing collection of such projects and events (hacks, collapses, exploitations, etc.) that are indicators of the significant failures of Web3, especially in opposition to its proponents' reports about its benefits and successes. Overall, White urges people to question the idea that "a better web is only possible through a technology that shows little indication of being up to the task," or that a true revolution will be brought about by venture capitalists and tech companies. She is a proponent of a new and open web, just not one that is based on blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and scams.
So who's right? The maximalists see Web3 as the solution to Big Tech's control and data exploitation. The critics see it as a venture capitalist-driven hype machine that can't deliver on its promises. But there's a perspective that's been largely missing from this entire debate: that of marginalized communities, particularly Black Americans. In the next post, I'll explore the complicated history of Black Americans and technology—a history that should inform how we think about Web3's promises and risks.
References
1. S. Schär, "Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Other Cryptocurrencies," in Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Central Banking, Oxford University Press, 2019.
2. Ethereum Foundation, "About the Ethereum Foundation."
3. T. Berners-Lee, quoted in Wired, "The Father of the Web Says Web3 Is Not the Web," 2022.
4. M. White, "My first impressions of web3," blog post, 2021.